Technical Field
The embodiments herein relate to sensor networks, and more particularly to synchronization in sensor networks.
Description of the Related Art
Over the past few decades, advances in technology have resulted in smaller and more efficient devices that enable communication among users. The need for these devices to be wireless has attracted significant interest in commercial and government applications. One of the popular wireless devices in demand is a sensor node that is capable of sensing, communicating, and processing data. Recent advances in the development of low-cost, low-power, multifunctional sensor nodes have led to the development of wireless sensor networks (WSNs) that cooperatively collect and disseminate sensor data. Wireless sensor networks consist of a large number of randomly deployed or self-organized sensor nodes that are appropriate for environments and operations that do not have a pre-defined network infrastructure, such as disaster relief or search and rescue operations. The attractive features of wireless sensor networks have extended research in a wide range of applications to include medical, environmental, and military operations.
One component in the operation of wireless sensor networks is clock synchronization, as it provides a common time frame to different nodes. Most of the applications for wireless sensor networks generally require monitoring of events, thus requiring sensor nodes to maintain a common reference time for collaborative data fusion and communications. Signal-processing techniques that turn raw data into meaningful results typically require relative synchronization among sensor node clocks in order to detect a correct chronology of events. Another example is the commonly used medium access control (MAC) protocol, time-division multiple access (TDMA), which requires precise time synchronization for its scheduling algorithm.
As the demand for wireless sensor networks in government and commercial industry increases, the broad application of time synchronization will become more prevalent as the requirement for data exchange increases.